RESTAURANT REVIEW : A Tired Trip From Japan Back to Italy

Imagine you developed your appetite for Italian food while living in Tokyo. Then you moved to Los Angeles and ate at dozens of Italian restaurants. None of them served the food you were used to. Nothing matched your favorite Tokyo pasta joint. You heard of places that might measure up in Gardena, but then you stumbled upon Itameshi-Ya in the former Tulipe space on Melrose.

Itameshi-Ya, says the colorful neon over the door: New Italian Cuisine. Inside, an Asian motif is seen in the lowered ceilings, hanging paper lanterns, lacquered chairs. Italian cucina is represented by displays of Italian groceries, the hearth-like open kitchen. Nat King Cole croons on the sound system. A congenial, neighborhood crowd fills about half the room on a weekday night.

The hostess leads us to a table in front of the bustling kitchen. She hands wooden placards the size of Ouija boards--menus! “Have you been here before?” she asks. We shake our heads. “Well, let me tell you, most of our dishes are big enough to share.”

We glance at the menu: “ antipasti , insalate , Spaghetti , Carni e Pesce .” We wonder: What makes this food different from other Italian food?

“Well,” she says, “we send it to the table in large bowls. You serve yourself--like in a Chinese restaurant.” She points to the wall where the boot of Italy is painted in bright colors. Around the boot are explanations written in various languages. Itameshi-Ya , we learn, is the Japanese term for an Italian restaurant where the food has Japanese influence and flavors. “This distinctive cuisine,” we read, “has traveled from Mama’s cucina of Italy, through the mountains and deserts of China, to Japan via the Silk Road! Each step of the way taking with it a part of each culture. . . . “

Decent, chewy Italian bread comes in a basket; there’s olive oil in bottles on the tables. So far, we’re in familiar territory: another contemporary Italian restaurant.

We regress a few years, however, when the appetizers arrive. Smoked salmon comes on a bed of iceberg lettuce with onions and capers: not bad. The smooth salmon is actually quite pleasing with the unfashionable, crunchy lettuce. With less success, fried calamari is also served atop a green salad. The squid, rubbery and lightly breaded, is sodden with dressing.

The rice croquette is distinctive in another way: it’s not the puny, walnut-sized arancini we’ve come to know in other cucinas around town. This croquette is the size of a croquet ball. Deep-fried and crunchy on the outside, a bit dry within, it comes in a generous ladling of red meat sauce.

Pizzas are large enough to feed two for dinner. Still, we’ve encountered no novel taste sensations; the Margarita, with fresh tomatoes and basil tastes pretty much like many other Margarita pizzas in town.

Big bowls of pasta do remind me of having noodles in a Chinese restaurant; but the similarity stops there. There’s a ton of spaghetti with bacon, egg and cream--a standard, bland carbonara--too bad the grated Parmesan isn’t good enough to perk it up. Itameshi-Ya’s fettuccine with green olives and tomato sauce reminds me of times I’ve rummaged through the cupboards for dinner; perhaps, even along the Silk Road, chefs made do with pasta, a can of tomatoes, a jar of Spanish olives.

Carne (meat) and pesce (fish) portions are less overwhelming. One large hungry person could clean any one of these plates. But there were no surprises either. An oddly soft swordfish filet swims in butter, the added basil sauce as tasteless as pesto made from lawn clippings. Breaded lamb chops also swim in butter and the breading obscures a lot of untrimmed fat. A simple grilled salmon, also buttery, is perfectly fine.

“Itameshi-Ya!” our waitress exclaims with gusto as she sets down the house dessert: vanilla ice cream in thick blueberry sauce with a liberal dousing of rum.

“Itameshi-Ya!” we mutter to ourselves as we leave, as we try to wrap our minds around the experience we’ve just had. The writing on the wall, we decide after several visits, is beside the point. This is familiar Italian food: a bit outdated and steadfastly ordinary. If this cuisine did indeed traverse Chinese mountains and deserts and cross oceans to reach us from Italy, it was an impervious traveler.

* Itameshi-Ya, 8360 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 655-7400. Lunch and dinner seven days. Beer and wine. Valet parking. American Express, MasterCard and Visa. Dinner for two, food only, $20 to $52.